Different types of film-coating apparatus are used in the sweets industry for producing confectionary products with a coating, e.g. a chocolate or sugar coating or with a sugar-free coating. Such sugar-free coatings contain, for example, the sugar substitute sorbitol or maltitol.
A known film-coating apparatus is one where the foods to be coated, e.g. nuts, raisins or puffed rice, are lying on a circulating belt and are continuously being mixed by the belt, while, above the belt, a coating nozzle sprays the coating in liquid form on the sweets. The coating may consist of several thin layers which are applied on the foods one after the other. Different coating materials are known, for example sugar solution or chocolate. However, new layers can only be applied once the previous layer of the coating material has solidified. This means that, for example, one layer of a chocolate coating has to have cooled down or respectively that a layer of sugar coating has to have dried.
The solidification (cooling or respectively drying) of the coating determines the duration of the production significantly. In the case of sugar coatings, so far, it has been possible to reduce the drying time of the sugar solution by increasing the sugar content. However, this has the disadvantage that the risk of unintended crystallization increases in sugar solutions with a higher sugar content. In an extreme case, the sugar solution will crystallize even though the temperature is still close to the boiling point. In addition, an increased wear of the belt will occur and thus an increase of the maintenance efforts. This has to be regarded as a limitation of the production efficiency.
Therefore, it is the object of the invention to present a film-coating apparatus with a circulating belt by means of which an improvement of the production efficiency can be achieved.